Students: Austin C., Zanib I., Mariana M., Isabella R., Ali Z., Haziqa Z.
Grade: 10th-12th Grade
Submission Date: 6/3/2026
Location: Queens, New York
Project Focus: Better Access Educational Resources and Knowledge for High-schoolers
Overview: Our group worked together to create an information campaign for highschoolers to further connect them with their local resources.
The problem that sparked our project was gaps in the knowledge among students about several parts of their high school experience. The available resources at their disposal, the different steps of high school, and many other bits and pieces of information just slipped by students who could have benefited from it. All of us in our group have been that student who figured out something too late to reap the benefits or to step away from the consequences.
What our group decided to do about this was to start “high schooling 101”, an initiative centered towards illuminating early and late high school students in the many shrouded parts of high school. Our goals were to mainly help show students what resources are available to them 24/7, help to de-stigmatize simple questions about high school and its complexities, and to provide support for the more confusing and difficult parts of being a high schooler. In order to do this we created a google classroom which would hold tutorials on basic parts of being a high school student.
We also created an instagram account where we plan on posting brief informative videos on things like GPA, available tutoring places, and more so we can further raise engagement with high schooling 101 and inform our peers.
Our Journey
Initially we had hoped to assist all high schoolers by providing them with tools and resources to use for educational purposes that would help them excel in school. But, as we worked on our Google Classroom, Instagram, and AI bot we realized that we could not address everyone at once in our school if we wanted to make sustainable change. So we refocused on primarily the freshmen and sophomore classes. Over time we had many ideas that had to be either removed or altered to fit limitations. This includes doing in-class meetings with freshmen, doing an assembly for incoming freshmen and sophomores, and even working together with our school administration, which all got dropped mainly because of time constraints.
Ultimately, nearing the end of the project, we had to have a conversation about the redirection of high schooling 101 right after administration at our school had rejected our pitch for in-class meetings. We had chosen to double back on focusing towards purely freshmen and sophomores and instead decided to generalize our mission towards all high school students, and not just the ones in our school. It was definitely a tough choice for us to make, as most of what we had prepared became useless for the near future. Though once it became clear that, we couldn't work through our administration this school year and that we have a person who can pitch high schooling 101 again next school year.
The future direction of high schooling 101 became much clearer to all of us in the group. We had decided that the best move was to use Instagram to raise awareness, for both our project, and the different resources people had at their disposal. This way, we could still accomplish our mission through different means as we simultaneously raise a stronger case for next year's pitch for an in school program of high schooling 101.
Project Artifacts
Highschooling 101’s Instagram
Students preparing their script for the video
Our Impact
Through our work on this project we gained a better understanding of not only the needs of our community, but also of the many different resources that they can use. We did this through surveys and interviews. We asked counselors, teachers, assistant principals, and students, what they thought would help improve their access and understanding of educational resources.
Our college office specifically expressed that they were happy to see an initiative focusing on teaching high schoolers how to utilize their resources and guiding them through the steps of educational success. One counselor stated “ Most students have no idea what they are really doing, they think only junior year matters and that bad grades won't impact them later on. But they do! Students need help planning, studying, and learning how to navigate through our resources but we can't get to every student one on one. So something like this where experienced students take on that initiative would absolutely help.”
Although we are yet to initiate our plans to have in person meetings, one on one sessions, and workshops, we have already gotten incredibly positive responses from counselors and teachers believing that our take on this can truly help struggling students. We hope that by diversifying our outreach efforts, we can go to the future rather than just helping students close to us. Our goal is to reach thousands of students through a growing collective of involved seniors who will take up our lessons and share them too.
The project is continuing so far through its instagram, as we plan on trying to grow some form of a social media presence. We also have aspirations to do prep workshops for middle schoolers going into high school.
One thing we would've done differently is working through administration earlier. Our initial plans for our project was to have this function specifically in our school, and to target it towards freshmen and sophomores who might need more help than most. But because we got the project rolling so late into the year, we couldn't really organize properly with the administration in our school, so instead we chose to independently try and push more support for students throughout our community. We had originally planned to also utilize an AI bot that fed information relevant to our school, but we weren’t allowed to implement it as well. This is due to the fact the schools have a pre-approved list of different AI’s that can and cannot be used. Such approvals take time, which is why we couldn't move forward with this AI chatbot. Though now that we are deciding to begin highschooling 101 independently instead, we can look towards further implementation of the AI.
We’re making sure that another group of students in our school does continue the project, and we’re hoping they get a chance to do everything we wanted to do throughout school. As of this moment, 5 out of 6 of the group are seniors, but Haziqa is a Junior, so she does plan on trying to continue the project in the school next year. This year though, we had a lot of hopes for highschooling 101. We wanted to share a google classroom where we give out resources and tutorials. We wanted to do a lesson plan where we myth-bust disinformation freshmen and sophomores encounter. We wanted to do a lot, and are hoping those things can still get done, just this following year.
